Chin force in violin playing

Abstract

Force generated between the left mandible of violinists and the chinrest of the violin was examined using a force-sensing chinrest developed in this study. A strain-gauge force sensor was built, and it was fixed between the violin's top plate and a chin cup. Fifteen professional/amateur violinists held the violin statically, played musical scales with different sound properties and sounding techniques, as well as an excerpt from a Max Bruch concerto. Peak and mean forces were evaluated for each task. In a separate experiment, lateral movement of the lower teeth due to different levels of voluntary chin force exertion was measured. Static holding forces observed were 15 and 22 N with and without the help of the left hand, respectively. Peak force increased from 16 N at soft dynamics to 20 N at strong dynamics during scales. The force further increased to 29 N with the use of vibrato technique and 35 N during shifts. Tempo and hand position did not affect the force. Playing a Bruch concerto induced a mean peak force of 52 N, ranging from 31 to 82 N among the violinists. The developed force-sensing chinrest could accurately record the generated chin force. Typical chin force to stabilize the violin during ordinary musical performance was less than 30 N, but it could momentarily exceed 50 N when technically demanding musical pieces were performed. The lateral shift of the mandible was fairly small (<0.4 mm) even with high chin-force exertion, possibly due to clenching of the molars.

Special Considerations for Chin Augmentation in the Professional Violinist

“…The forces applied to a violinist's mandible increase with more challenging concertos and with numerous hours of practice. 2,5 Notably, a study comparing cephalograms of 24 adolescent violinists to non-violinists demonstrated violinists had shorter left-sided facial heights and shorter rami. 7 Other studies have shown increased incisor proclination and chin deviation on mouth opening.…”

“…Anders Ericsson's early research suggested that the highest level of violin performance may be achieved through 10,000 hours of “deliberate practice.” 1 He emphasized the significance of quality of training in elite performers, which often began in childhood well-before skeletal maturity 1 . The standard instrument (violin) requires the left mandible to balance the forces exerted through an eccentrically placed chin rest, along with compensatory actions from the contralateral facial skeleton and musculature 2 . As a result, violinists may develop temporomandibular joint (TMJ) disorders, bruxism, and masseteric hypertrophy 3–5 .…”

Biomechanical analysis of the right elevated glenohumeral joint in violinists during legato-playing

“…Two external forces were added to the model to consider the additional weight in the model due to the violin. The force vector acting on an approximated point of the chin illustrates the holding force of the violin with the assumed value of 20 N [ 18 ] opposite to gravity. This force is counteracted by the weight of the violin of about 0.6 kg, including the attachments, and the reaction to the holding force.…”

Method Development for Multimodal Data Corpus Analysis of Expressive Instrumental Music Performance

“…Various measurement systems have been used for assessments of three-dimensional motions in musical performance, including infrared high-speed optoelectronic (camera) systems (Gonzalez-Sanchez et al, 2019), inertial measurement units (IMU; , and ultra-sonic system (Park et al, 2012b). Kinetic assessments have used force or pressure sensors for body contact with instruments, such as finger (Kinoshita and Obata, 2009) and chin forces (Obata and Kinoshita, 2012) and weight distribution (Spahn et al, 2014) in violin playing. Assessments of muscle activation commonly involve electromyography (EMG) using surface electrodes for superficial muscles (Park et al, 2012a;Gonzalez-Sanchez et al, 2019), but also fine wire electrodes to assess deeper muscle layers (Rickert et al, 2013).…”